About Rebecca
from a novel by Daphne Du Maurier. Upper class lesbian English writer who lived in Cornwall. Hithcock and Olivier's first film in Hollywood. Joan Fontaine's greatest performance - she died of drink problems. Also notable Judith Anderson's scary performance as Mrs Danvers as a frustrated lover/personal servant of Rebecaa - a recently deceased high society lady. Also George Sanders doing his corrupt English aristocrat bit - revisited in All About Eve, The Rebel. and the Picture of Dorian Gray.

Jamaica Inn

An earlier film. Another Daphne Du Maurier story - set in Cornwall once again. This time 18th century Cornwall. Notable for performances by Charles Laughton , Maureen O'hara. Robert Newton and a young Emlyn Williams( notable playwright who wrote Night Must Fall - a play thriller still much beloved in England.

Frenzy

A weird one. Hitch returned to England at the start of the 1870's to make this one. On one level a thriller. Much more interest to itch fans is Hitch phoyographing lovingly the old Covent Garden Fruit Market in LOndon, where Hitch's Dad was a porter at the turn of the century. A flawed masterpiece - but hundreds of Hitch's wonderful crazy obsessions on display here. His relish of a grizzly murder, his Catholicism -(one murder victim dies chanting a psalm!). Jon Fich (Polanski's choice for Macbeth) stars along with Barry Foster, Anna Massey...the hits keep coming!

Shadow of a Doubt

Hitch's lovesong for suburban America. Joseph Cotton as a smooth talking serial killer hungrily stalking a smalltown American community, and being sussed out by a young girl.   Faultless.